The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
